Scouting for meat.....

We attended a Bollywood extravaganza* at our local hall last week. Mrs B took the opportunity to dress up in a Saree, while I decided not to. I’m already getting probing questions from Nikki over at Que sera sera! about some of my recent behaviour ….

“Why do you know so much about Gossip Girl**? Moonlighting as a fashion blogger, cross dressing...I'm curious.” Nikki

* i.e local amateur production given a fancy pants name to try and draw in the punters. It was for charity so I’m sure they can be forgiven….

** I’m putting it down to a midlife crisis and feel it is only proper that I also own up to various similar hideous offences including the blatant watching, and on occasions enjoyment of, Glee; The Vampire Diaries; One Tree Hill and other such teen TV atrocities. I draw the line at reality TV programmes however; even I have some standards. Even if they happen to be very low ones…..

I did however decide to enter into the spirit of the event and wore a pair of long white shorts, sandals and a collarless jacket. This was my attempt at doing a posh Ghandi but did not go down well with a very disapproving Mrs B – she gave me a warning for attempted civil disobedience in a built up area, during the hours of darkness, as well as an AFBO (Anti Fashion Behaviour Order) and me, a published fashion critic, oh the disgrace.

The evening entertainment could best be described as “interesting” – a trio of kids with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than jiggle about to Indian music. (Think Fame or even Glee*** but remove any vestige of talent - not that either of those shows had much of it in the first place - replacing it with bucket loads of enthusiasm and natural raw inability). I guess it could have been worse, the three of them could have been out mugging pensioners. Hmmm, when the day of reckoning comes, at the end of my life, I wonder if I can include taking one for the pensioners, in my plus column?

*** Please note my blatant attempt to appeal to all age groups. Don’t say I don’t make an effort…..

The Indian music in question appeared to have been fused with elevator music and was played through an amp that sounded like it was 20ft under water. This may actually have proved to be a good thing as the distortion was far more musical than the tunes that were assaulting our ears could ever be….

Still, they were serving authentic curry, so I felt it was probably worth going through the audio and visual torture….Only,when they served up the curry, they had forgotten to include the most important ingredient….No,not the spices and herbs, or the rice and yoghurt, these were all present and correct,but where was the meat? In my (possibly slightly warped) view, it should be a capital offence to advertise curry but fail to mention it would contain just the evils of vegetarianism*****. I need meat not rabbit food….

***** If we had been built to eat vegetables we would not have vitamin supplements

Perhaps I’m being unfair and they had actualy been attempting to lure rabbits into the curry. If so, a word of advice for next time, they should allow the curry to mature a little longer, giving time for the rabbits to actually get there and most importantly, allow for them to eat all those evil vegetables. Of course there maybe the slight danger of bunny nuggets but I’m sure that these can be passed off as squidgy raisons….

Thanks to our friends Penny and Paul I just about managed to survive after they took pity on me and practically carried me back to their house to provide me copious amounts of meat before my body went into Carniphylactic***** shock…..

***** Similar to anaphylactic shock except brought on through un-exposure to meat rather than exposure to allergens… I'm not sure of the spelling of Carniphylactic, it's not like I make these words up......only I did with that one. So surely I can't spell it wrong....no doubt Teach will let me know.

Penny & Mrs B attempt some Indian dance moves

Looks like the other Bollywood guests are surrendering.

Mrs B prays for the event to end.

Not sure what an oversize mini-babybell* has to do

with Bollywood?....Mala any ideas?

* Or is it a mini woman with a normal sized babybell? 

Ticket touting made easy
Our latest gig was 'Scouting For Girls' at the Hammersmith apollo – a great fun band, an English version of Bare Naked Ladies – i.e. great music with often amusing lyrics, some of my favourites lines include :-

“She’s thirty turned flirty, isn’t that the age a girl turns dirty”
From - She’s so lovely

“Take of your clothes, take of your clothes and come to bedIt used to be just me but that’s how 1 plus 1 makes 3”
From - 1+1=3

“Posh girls have good manners but they go like the clappers because they never got to hang around with boys at school”
From - Posh Girls

“It ain't gonna happen
For me and the Strachan”
From - Michaela Strachan

Misheard lyrics of the night –I thought it was hilarious that Mrs B thought, when SFGs were singing “You put the meaning in wacaday”, a Kids program from the 80’s, that Michaela Strachan hosted,  she heard it as “Wank-a-day….”

The SFG fan base proved a mixed blessing, being largely made up of young teenage girls (no need to say anything Nikki. I just happen to like lots of different types of music) meant the audience were quite short in stature, allowing Mrs B an excellent view of the stage for once. The normal Mosh pit action, which can easily be avoided by stepping back a bit, was replaced with a high pitch screeching, which can get very annoying. I know that classical music and also low pitch sound is often used to disperse groups of adolescence on from public places, perhaps the high pitch screech is some sort of teenage revenge…..

One thing I hate about concerts is when I end up with spare tickets to sell, when friends can’t make it. I have tried selling the tickets outside a venue before but the reaction you get from people, it's as if  I'm suddenly scum, something that should be wiped off the sole of their shoes. To be honest, I have a certain amount of sympathy with them, as I personally believe ticket touts****** are indeed the scum of the earth and the main reason why people can’t get tickets for concerts at a reasonable price in the first place. It’s not that I’m trying to sell the tickets at a profit even, just trying to cover the cost. This time I managed to sell some spare tickets before hand using the internet. It still meant I had to meet up with strangers outside the gig, which feels a bit odd. Think of it like turning up for a blind date, where the person that you are meeting has brought along their partner and clearly doesn’t want to hang around for a chat and so they give you money to go away…. However, it beats having to pimp the tickets on a street corner….

****** The only time I've scalped tickets was for U2 at Twickenham.  The tout started off at about £200 per ticket but I managed to get him down to £100 which was only about £30 over the asking price….It was only after I had handed over the money and he was sprinting down the road that I realise that our tickets were in separate parts of the stadium to each other…. Oh, you have to love those little scamps, right up to the point you catch them and take them to be euthanized….

Catch you next week.